A solution may finally – finally! – come for quality of life crimes

San Francisco Police Officer Kim Lasalle was working her beat Wednesday morning when she saw an all too familiar sight: two middle-aged, scraggly homeless men who were illegally camping on the sidewalk at the corner of Polk and Hemlock streets.

They’re part of a group of about 15 men, mostly alcoholics, who sleep there on a regularly, she said. She ran the two men’s names through the system and learned one had 25 warrants out for his arrest for not showing up to court to respond to quality of life citations for camping, drinking in public and the like. He owed $7,000 in bail.

Sounds like a lot, right? Not compared to his buddy who had 64 bench warrants and owed $26,000.
So what did Lasalle do? She offered them services — again. They refused — again. She cited them — again. They were taken to county jail — again. She said she was 100 percent sure what would happen next: they’d be back at Polk and Hemlock drinking and camping before long.

“We’re not helping them by citing them and sending them to jail,” she said. “They’re still homeless. They love sleeping on the streets. That’s their home. That’s their family.”

The city’s criminal justice system believes it finally has devised a way to deal with the chronic offenders who rack up dozens of citations and thousands of dollars in fines for quality-of-life crimes including public urination, public defecation, drinking in public, camping and aggressive panhandling.

So now the streets are clear of drunken men who camp on sidewalks, use the sides of buildings as their restrooms and follow tourists demanding spare change, right? We can hear your laughter from here.

Yup, the change still hasn’t been made. But this time, it’s really happening. By the end of the summer. Really.
Cristine DeBerry, chief of staff for District Attorney George Gascón, has been leading the effort, getting agreement from the police department, the sheriff’s department, adult probation, the public health department and the Superior Court. The idea is to target the 68 people, almost all men and many of them alcoholics, who have had at least 20 outstanding bench warrants in the past two years.

Now, there are pretty much no consequences for failing to appear in court for quality-of-life infractions. Judges can issue bench warrants, police can arrest the guys, but the sheriff’s department only keeps those in jail who have fines totaling $7,500 or more.

Many of them are so sick, they’re immediately transferred from jail to San Francisco General Hospital. To be transferred to jail after they dry out, the patient has to be accompanied by a police officer — and officers aren’t always inclined to hang out for several hours at the hospital. So usually the offenders are re-released onto the streets.

If the offender does make an unlikely court appearance, judges sometimes release them with little or no consequences or the district attorney fails to appear. That, in turn, has prompted some police officers to not bother citing chronic offenders.

“Everybody has been frustrated with each other,” DeBerry said.

Now, all sides are pledging to do better — but smoothing all the wrinkles is taking a lot longer than anybody anticipated. DeBerry said the biggest issue has been implementing a computer system that allows each agency to share its relevant information.

Many of the changes seem like no-brainers. Currently, when a police officer takes a chronic offender to county jail, he or she has to write out every bench warrant — and when it’s 60-plus, that can take ages. Now, the officer will list one and stamp the form with “chronic offender” so the rest can be completed later using the new computer system.

The sheriff’s department has pledged to keep chronic offenders in jail until they get a court date rather than being released on the streets and told to come back later. The workgroup is trying to ensure the offenders will be seen at the Community Justice Center, which usually takes cases much more quickly than the traditional system and emphasizes services over more jail time.

Judges will send the offenders to jail if they don’t agree to use offered services, and the sheriff’s department has said it will ensure those who are jailed get appropriate services as well. The police department has pledged that officers will stay at S.F. General as long as it takes to deal with one of the 68 chronic offenders.

Susan Fahey, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, said interim Sheriff Vicki Hennessy is fully committed to the changes.

“She started more than 30 years ago, and she said when she came in as a new deputy they were talking about this,” Fahey said. “It’s been an age old problem.”

One cop told us there was a man arrested in October who had racked up an unbelievable 224 bench warrants for failing to respond to citations for drinking in public and other quality-of-life crimes. He had a total bail of $84,745. The cycle has finally stopped — but only because the man died shortly after that last citation.